Familiar faces compete for HISD school board

Updated 6:27 pm, Monday, August 24, 2015

The candidates who met Monday's deadline to run for the Houston Independent School District Board of Education include familiar faces.

The District 3 race, to represent the southeast Houston area, will be a rematch from 2011. Incumbent Manuel Rodriguez Jr., who won by 25 votes four years ago, again will face Ramiro Fonseca.

Rodriguez, first elected in 2003, previously served as president of the Mexican-American School Board Members Association. Fonseca works for Project GRAD, an education nonprofit.

The 2011 contest got heated after Rodriguez put out a campaign flyer saying Fonseca long had advocated for gay rights – "NOT KIDS."

Also vying for the District 3 seat is Jose Leal.

In District 8, which includes the East End, ex-HISD trustee Diana Davila, who resigned her seat in 2010, is trying to oust incumbent Juliet Stipeche. Davila, a former teacher, said this week that she left "to help care for my dad who had been diagnosed with cancer."

Stipeche, an attorney, works as associate director for Rice University's Richard Tapia Center for Excellence and Equity.

The District 4 seat being vacated by Paula Harris drew four candidates: attorney and former City Councilwoman Jolanda Jones; retired HISD principal Davetta Daniels; Ann McCoy, a research director at the University of Houston and former HISD research specialist; and community activist Larry McKinzie.

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